Publication Detail

The British Climate Change Act: a critical evaluation and proposed alternative approach

ORIG_TITLE :

The British Climate Change Act: a critical evaluation and proposed alternative approach

AUTHOR :

Pielke, RA

FIRST_AUTHOR :

Pielke, RA

AUTHOR_COUNT :

1

ADDRESS :

Univ Colorado, Ctr Sci & Technol Policy Res, Boulder, CO 80309 USA

PUBLISHER :

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

FIRSTAUTHOREMPLOYER :

1

ABBREV_JOURNAL :

Environ. Res. Lett.

ART_NO :

24010

VOLUME :

4

ISSUE :

2

PUBLISH_DATE :

APR-JUN

YEAR :

2009

URL :

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2009.02.pdf

REFEREED :

1

RESOURCE :

WOS:000267991900011

CITATION :

12

DEPT :

CSTPR

LAST_UPDATED :

2017-05-24 12:54:16

ISSN :

1748-9326

IDS :

470QD

DOI :

10.1088/1748-9326/4/2/024010

ABSTRACT :

This paper evaluates the United Kingdom's Climate Change Act of 2008 in terms of the implied rates of decarbonization of the UK economy for a short-term and a long-term target established in law. The paper uses the Kaya identity to structure the evaluation, employing both a bottom up approach (based on projections of future UK population, economic growth, and technology) and a top down approach (deriving implied rates of decarbonization consistent with the targets and various rates of projected economic growth). Both approaches indicate that the UK economy would have to achieve annual rates of decarbonization in excess of 4 or 5%. To place these numbers in context, the UK would have to achieve the 2006 carbon efficiency of France by about 2015, a level of effort comparable to the building of about 30 new nuclear power plants, displacing an equivalent amount of fossil energy. The paper argues that the magnitude of the task implied by the UK Climate Change Act strongly suggests that it is on course to fail, and discusses implications.